126 NIGHT-FISHING IN THE SPET. 



fresh water. Spey fish are in general very hand- 

 some, with small heads and very broad and deep 

 bodies. 



" I have angled in this river in June and July 

 all night, when the water was very low, and with 

 great success. When the days are very bright 

 and the river low, you may fish all day long and 

 not get a single rise ; but if you wait until after 

 sunset, all the fish move up to the thin water at 

 the top of the stream ; and if there is a brisk 

 wind, and an over-cast, blue, cloudy sky, with no 

 dew falling, you may then begin operations, and 

 before three o'clock in the morning you may bag 

 half-a-dozen salmon, and some of them very large 

 ones. If there is the least dew falling, you may 

 content yourself with walking home, for not a fin 

 will rise at your fly. I may here mention that, 

 at night, you never see the fish rise, nor can you 

 see, with anything like precision, where your line 

 and fly fall on the water ; but you may soon get a 

 ' rug ' (tug), and off goes your reel with a rattling 

 noise. The fly that answers best at night has a 

 black body, over which very broad silver tinsel is 

 to be thickly wound ; the wings are to be of pure 

 white, — of the white wing-feather of the goose 

 or swan. I recollect one night, about five years 

 ago, taking four large salmon out of one pool in 



